Superbowl Sunday is the day before Valentine’s this year so chances are somewhat high that a fair number of guys forget. How many of said guys read food blogs in their spare time, I don’t know. Making a Battenberg cake as an apology will definitely go a long way towards working your way out of the doghouse. Baked goods go a long way towards bringing someone around unless they’re completely cold-hearted. Probably why Summer turned Pedro down when he made her a cake to ask her to prom. Anyway, on to recipe if you haven’t already skipped ahead.
Recipe Notes
A traditional Battenberg is cooked in a specialty tin so that the cake can bake in the traditional thin strips. The strips are then cut to equal sizes and the cake is assembled. However, the Battenberg tin is not readily accessible in the states and how many times are you going to make this cake anyway? A loaf tin divided with tin foil will work for the once a year you make this cake. Plus you don’t have a specialty tin taking up space in your kitchen. So before you start prepping the batter, shape the tin foil in your loaf pan to have a divider in the middle. See my interpretation below so you can feel better about how yours looks.
The Batter
The cake batter is pretty straightforward. Mix the butter and sugar until nice and fluffy. Mix the eggs and vanilla and add to the butter and sugar. At this point, add your self-raising flour and fold it in with a spatula. If you don’t have self-raising flour, you can make your own by adding baking powder and salt to your flour. You don’t want to use the whisk for this step as it will cause the batter to be a bit tough and the cake won’t bake up as nice and fluffy as it could be. I learned this the hard way while making a cake for my wife a few years back. It tasted fine, nothing wrong with it, but as Roy Kent said, “Don’t you dare settle for fine.” Strive for handshake level baking, IYKYK.
Once combined and ready, place half of the cake batter as is in one half of the divided tin. Then, add a few drops of food coloring to the other half and mix until evenly colored. Place the batter in the other half of the tin and bake until firm to the touch. The sides of the cake by the dividers tend to take longer to cook, FYI. Total baking time was a little over 30 minutes but my oven temp is all over the place so be sure and check your cake to prevent overcooking.
Marzipan
Make the marzipan while the cake is cooling. It took over 2 hours at room temperature for my cake to cool sufficiently. If you’re in a time crunch, use the fridge or freezer to speed the cooling. Anyway, the marzipan, that is unless you bought it premade, in which case skip to the next paragraph. Using a food processor, pulse together the almond flour and powered sugar to combine. Next add the almond extract and a bit of the water and pulse to combine. Add more water as necessary so that the marzipan comes together and turns to a ball in the food processor. Once its in a ball, remove from the food processor, knead by hand a few times. Add food coloring if you’re using it and knead until fully incorporated. Wrap the marzipan in cling film and put in the fridge to chill for 5-10 minutes.
Once chilled, place the marzipan between two pieces of wax paper. Roll out marzipan to an 8×12 rectangle and then place marzipan back in the fridge until ready to use.
Cake Assembly
Remove cake from the tin once cooled and cut tops and sides with a sharp knife so you have two equal pieces. To make an 8-sectioned cake, cut each cake in half length-wise and then cut in half again. Heat up your jam and add a bit of water to thin it and make it easier to brush on. You can pass the jam through a sieve to remove any bits of fruit but this step is optional. Brush one long side of cake with jam and place it jam side down on the marzipan. Align the cake strip parallel with one of the long sides. The idea is to assemble the cake on the marzipan and then roll the cake up in the marzipan.
Take a second strip of cake of the opposite color and brush all side with jam. Place the second piece next to the first and then repeat until you have four pieces. Place the fifth piece on top of the first piece and repeat until assembled in a checkerboard pattern. Wrap the marzipan over the top of the cake and press at the edge to seal. The edges of the cake can be left exposed or if you have enough marzipan, feel free to cover those as well. The top of the cake can be left plain or you can decorate however you like.
Battenberg Cake
Equipment
- 1 Loaf Tin & aluminum foil You can use a Battenberg tin if you have it, but a loaf tin divided with aluminum foil works too.
- 1 Stand Mixer hand mixer works too
- 1 Food Processor If you're buying premade marzipan, you don't need this.
- 1 Rolling Pin Wine bottle works too
- Wax paper
- 1 Fine-mesh strainer Not needed, but nice to have
Ingredients
Cake Ingredients
- 175 grams Unsalted butter softened
- 175 grams Granulated sugar
- 3 eggs Medium, room temp
- 1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 175 grams self-raising flour If you don't have self-raising flour, you can make your own using AP flour, baking powder, and salt.
- 1 tbsp milk 2%, whole, skim, doesn't matter
- 1 or 2 drops of food coloring pink, red, or whatever color you want to make the cake.
Marzipan Ingredients
- 180 grams Almond Flour
- 140 grams Powdered Sugar
- 40 ml water
- 1/2 tsp Almond Extract Can use up to 1 tsp depending on personal preference
- Food coloring Whatever color you want the marzipan to be. Gel food coloring works really well here.
Finishing Ingredients
- 350 grams Prepared Marzipan
- 8 Tbsp Apricot Jam You can use whatever jam you like or have on hand. I used the cherry jam I made with my parents over the summer.
Instructions
Cake Batter Instructions
- If you're using a loaf tin, make your divider with aluminum foil, grease the entire tin, and start preheating the oven to 350 deg. F.
- Put the butter and sugar in the bowl of your stand mixer and using the whisk attachment, beat until the texture is creamy and the mixture is light in color.
- In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and vanilla and slowly incorporate the eggs into the butter and sugar mixture.
- Sift the flour into the bowl with the eggs and sugar and add the milk.
- Fold all of the ingredients together using a spatula or wooden spoon.
- Divide the cake batter in half; place one half into the tin and add food coloring to the other half and mix until batter is colored to your liking.
- Spoon the pink or red cake batter into the other half of the divided loaf pan and bake for 25-30 min or until firm to the touch.
Marzipan
- While the cake is cooling, add the almond flour and powdered sugar to the food processor and pulse a few times to combine
- Add the almond extract and water to the food processor and pulse a few more times until the mixture comes together into a ball.
- Take the marzipan out and add the food coloring and mix until color is fully incorporated.
- Wrap marzipan in cling film and place in fridge until ready to use.
Cake Assembly
- Remove from the oven and use a butter knife to release the cake from the sides of the tin but do not remove the cake from the tin. Let cake cool completely in the tin.
- Once cool, remove the cake from the tin. If cakes have risen unevenly, use a large knife to trim the tops of the cakes so that you have two identical pieces.
- Using your large knife, cut each cake section in half lengthwise. If you want to make an 8-sectioned cake like the one in the picture above, cut each piece of cake lengthwise a second time so that you have a total of 8 strips of cake, 4 strips of each color.
- Remove marzipan from fridge and roll out between two sheets of wax paper to an 8"x12" rectangle, roughly 1/8" thick.
- Heat up your jam with a little bit of water so that its a little runny and then pass it through a strainer to remove any big chunks of fruit. If you don't have a strainer or don't want to remove the chunks of fruit, you don't need to. Totally up to you.
- Brush one long side of one piece of cake with jam and place it jam side down on the marzipan so that its lined up along one of the short sides of the marzipan.
- Brush the other three sides of the piece of cake with jam. Brush a strip of yellow cake and place jam side down next to the pink strip. Brush the remaining sides of the pink piece of cake with jam.
- Repeat two more times along the bottom for a total of 4 strips of cake along the bottom and then construct the second tier, making sure to brush all sides of each strip of cake with jam.
- Wrap the marzipan over the top of the cake, leaving the ends of the cake exposed. Trim excess marzipan off of the edges and slice ends to neaten.
- Top of the cake can be left plain or a pattern can be incorporated. Store cake in an airtight container.